Monday, February 13, 2017

Weekly Reflection for Week of February 6-10

How did you do on the work?I did well on this week's work. For homework, I did vodcast 4.3, which had three parts. I completed all parts on time and was more thoughtful about the organization of my notes than I think I have been in the past. In class, we worked in groups on creating a video demonstration of the process of transcription and translation. Not only did I enjoy this because I got to play with Play-Doh, but I also solidified my knowledge of the process we were modeling with it. On Friday, we took a quiz on the material covered by the last two vodcasts, and besides one or two questions, I was confident in all my answers. As usual, we did a couple of packets during class time this week, which I felt helped me because they provided real-world examples of what we were learning about, such as the rock pocket mice.

What do you think you understand well?Thanks to the Play-Doh activity, I understand the process of transcription and translation (for the most part.) I also understand very well how mutations in these processes can affect organisms, because this ides ties back to our first units on natural selection and evolution

Where do you think you could improve?The additional processing that the RNA in eukaryotic cells go through is still a little confusing to me. Taking notes on it made sense, but when we had to model it in our video, I realized that I didn't fully understand how it worked. I could improve by studying this topic more, perhaps with the use of my textbook or online videos.

What strategies will you use to improve?As I said last week, taking advantage of the supplemental material would help me improve. Although we haven't received our graded quizzes back yet, I also could go over my quiz more thoroughly to make sure I understand why I got certain questions wrong.

How does the work we are doing fit into the context/narrative of the course?

This class is supposed to teach us biology (obviously,) but it is also supposed to teach us how biology is relevant. The information in vodcast 4.3 about the applications of new bio-technologies in the real world does this. If we are to become scientists, or at least people who understand what we hear in the news about science, it is imperative that we learn this material.